


Faux

by AsbestosMouth



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anxiety, Birthday Party, Demisexuality, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Idiots in Love, Kissing, M/M, Much flail such wow, Shovel Talk, Varys is a dick but he's an awesome dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 14:40:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10493079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsbestosMouth/pseuds/AsbestosMouth
Summary: When under pressure from his family to actually start dating at the advanced age of thirty two, Willas Tyrell does the most obvious thing he can think of at the time. He says he has a boyfriend. Which he hasn't. Not at all. A boyfriend who is promptly invited to Mace's 60th birthday party. This would be easily fixed if Willas, bless him, hadn't told them the name of his fake lover.Oberyn? He just goes along with it because, hey, when you're in love with someone as adorable as Willas Tyrell, you just want to protect them. And make love to them. And do nefarious things. With your tongue.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt that started this fic: _I don't know if prompts are open, but can you do a fake relationship au for Willas and Oberyn? Maybe if Willas panics and just tells his family he has a boyfriend to get them off his back, but then has to introduce them or something._
> 
> Thanks Anonymous. I am wondering if you're the same Nonny that sends me the amazing Oberyn/Willas prompts that I have, and will write, and are on The List. If so, you're bloody good at prompts.

* * *

  

_ <14:38> r u free 4 me 2 call? _

**_< 14:40> I am slightly tied up at this moment, sweet boy. I can answer texts however, if you wish to keep sending them._ **

_ <14:41> i did sumthin stupid :( _

 

That is quite normal when Willas is forced to be amongst his family at major holidays, birthdays, and other times when Olenna Tyrell demands the poor man’s time. He does have the tendency to panic when overwhelmed, and agrees to anything for a peaceful life. Babysitting all of Garlan’s adorable yet athletic and frighteningly bombastic children. Wedding planning for Margaery. Anything that involves Loras.

Oberyn makes his excuses, takes an early finish from work. He is, after all, the Vice President of Communications for the Martell business empire. He can do what he wishes, and who he wishes, whenever he so wishes.

Willas is number two on his quick dial button list. The first is Doran, who demands such respect.

“Sweet boy.”

“Oh Gods. Oberyn. I’ve screwed up. I’m. Oh Gods. I’m just. I’m so sorry! They were poking me, and mentioning all these people, and how I should go out with them, and I panicked and said I already have a partner, and then I said I’ll bring them to meet them, and I just don’t know what to do because I’ve got two weeks before Father’s birthday, and I’m just. Panicking. Breathe, Willas. Breathe. Remember to breathe-”

  
Oberyn provides the counting, and slowly but surely the tightness of breath and the pitchy squeaking die down to something approaching normality. As close as normality gets with Willas. Sweet, odd man that he is. Oberyn is terribly fond, and more than a little smitten. He has no defense against leggy brunette boys with wondrous backsides and pretty eyes. No defense against good-natured men with lightning quick minds and eccentricities.

“We shall find someone, you must be calm.”

“But I said the name, and. Oh Gods. Oberyn.”

“Willas? Who did you say?”

Hesitation trembles. “I said you. I’m so sorry. I panicked.”

 

* * *

 

“You don’t have to do this, Oberyn. I can say we broke up? Or I can’t go. Yes, I’ll stay here. Much safer than going near Olenna.”

Oberyn hums, runs his hands across the perfectly fitting shirt he bought Willas for the occasion - if he is to be a fake lover, then he wishes to act the part well - gently digs the tips of his fingers into the wracking tension ruining those slender shoulders, that beautiful long back. Under the caresses Willas melts into something far too pretty for either of their goods. His hazel eyes darken to a mossy brown with the pupil widening, his well-formed lips parting in the softest of sighs.

“I shall do this, for you need me to do this.” A kiss to a cheekbone, a delicious burn as the skin turns pink under his mouth. “I shall protect you from your harpy Grandmother, and I shall be a perfect boyfriend for them to wonder at.”

Worry lines deepen between Willas’ eyebrows, at the corners of his eyes. He needs kissing so very much, so very badly, and it takes much of Oberyn’s power to resist capturing that tempting set of lips with his own. No. Willas, as desirable and delicious as he is, does not wish for attention. There have been no mentions of past lovers, and they have been friends for many a year. He seems as if he does not want to have lust and sex in his orderly life, and that is to be respected.

A shame, for Oberyn would volunteer his body if Willas needed such wants slaked, if he needed to drench himself in licentation, but no. He remains sweet and beautiful, and married to a career in science that even Oberyn cannot understand.

“I-if we could, y’know. How boyfriends are.” Shivers trail his limbs. “I don’t know how boyfriends are.”

It shall burn Oberyn’s heart, but he smiles most kindly. “Kisses, and hand holding, and affection. Little jokes that only we know of, and mutual support. Caresses. Desire. Need. Hunger.”

Willas’ eyes, almost black, flutter closed, and he licks nervously at the plump curve of his soft lower lip.

“I will try. I’ll be awful, but...you’re so good to me, Oberyn. You’re always so bloody decent, and I’ll never be able to repay-”

“It is because you are my friend, and I love you.”

He does, in that tangled knotted friend/lust/lover/romantic twist that Willas’ existence brings in his lungs. The other who elicited such thoughts, his dear Ellaria, and he misses her like the moon misses the stars, means that Oberyn can never in his life love another woman in the way he loved his almost-wife. She liked Willas, also. She whispered in his ear as they made love, depravity and filth in her voice, about exactly what they should both do to their pretty little Tyrell. Once or twice they almost offered, before Ellaria sickened. A half-decade and more she has been gone, and yet he thinks of her every morning when he awakens. Ellaria, then Willas.

If Oberyn is the fierce heat of the sun, and Ellaria the coolly beautiful moon, then Willas with his warmth and goodness and promise and strange moods is the sky. None can exist without the other; that circular thing that drives life.

“I love you too,” the frantically blushing boy says, and the words catch before Willas manages a smile. “You’re my best friend.”

His thumbs trail across pristine untouched white skin, and Oberyn silently wishes for more.

 

* * *

 

They take Oberyn’s town car, the sleek two-door coupe with the convertible roof that he treated himself to when they won the Stark Steel contract. Like many of his possessions, it flashes bronze and red, and he eschewed the personal number plate.

He drives like he talks; one hand waving about, seemingly out of control but constantly aware of everything around him. Willas, used to it, fiddles with the stereo, flicks through the old-fashioned CD changer - such is life when one buys a classic vehicle - and puts on something soothingly melodic.

Oberyn makes sure, in all his cars, that there is music that Willas enjoys. He himself, due to his daughters, listens to the radio stations that keep up to date with modern trends. He can name all of the members of various boybands his youngest listens to, and joins in with the tormented screaming of Obara’s death metal. Nymeria favours Volantine-tinged Eastern rhythms. Tyene’s passion for chants and sept music suits her cool-headed nature. Sarella and her urban hip-hop. Elia and her classic rock, which Oberyn prefers out of everything that is offered.

Obara told him, carelessly, to just fuck Willas out of his system and have done with it. “Not that you will, Oberyn,” she said. Her new tattoos gleamed in the Dornish sun as she shifted her weight, her Greyjoy girlfriend who she’d met in Essos sporting her own ink. “You’re in love with him. He’s too fucking stupid to realise it, and that’s his fault, but you talk about him constantly. Like, shit, Dad. Constantly.”

Willas loves classical, and opera, and speaks of ancient composers with a fondness that spikes Oberyn’s lust. Everything the boy does - for compared to Oberyn, approaching fifty, Willas is young and nubile and beautiful - grinds in his bones, turns his blood to molten lead.

The nearer to Highgarden they are, the tenser Willas becomes. The smiles dry, like a riverbed in summer, and he seems diminished somehow. The lie weighs heavy upon that pale brow, and the guilt, and something else that cannot quite be deciphered. Oberyn thinks it may be the strain of having to act, having to touch someone as if they are his lover. He offered gently to let Willas practice upon him, but panic shot those huge doe-like eyes.

Oberyn reaches out, lays his hand upon Willas’ slender thigh, moves fingertips in tiny circles. Touch helps, it seems; sometimes he idly fantasises about Willas needing the caresses, needing the strokes, the arms wrapped about him, that he is so desperately touch-starved that he craves Oberyn’s skin upon his own skin. Pleasuring himself to something almost pathetically vanilla - and he is not completely perverse, not entirely, just less kinky than some of his friends but far more experienced and hedonistic than the vast majority, and doesn’t need tools or toys though he enjoys them - makes him smile after climax with a fondness that is all Tyrell-hot and Willas-tinted.

Willas manages a tiny smile, and is beautiful. Terrified, and sick with his own machinations, but so very lovely.

 

* * *

 

The Tyrell who meets them is similar to Willas. He has the same wide hazel eyes, the same slightly crooked grin. He is, however, built like a fascinatingly muscled ox, sports a very short military-style haircut, and exudes a sensibleness that is very unlike the man carefully getting out of the car.

Oberyn holds the door, ever the attentive adoring boyfriend.

“Wil, you made it.”

“Garlan? I thought you were in-?”

“Dondarrion got me sent home for a week for compassionate leave before Olenna came over and threatened him.” He smiles, close-lipped and warm.

Ah. This is the Garlan that Willas speaks glowingly of. The man strides up, and he’s casual in jeans and a t-shirt that shows a stocky build made of hard-work and sacrifice, shakes Oberyn’s hand. His grip is impressive, calloused and rough-fleshed.

“Oberyn? Nice car. It’s good to finally meet you, since Willas talks my bloody ear off about you all the time.” A nod, and then both Tyrells are in a hug. Garlan is the shorter, by about an inch, but far wider, and Willas clings to him, eyes tightly shut.

It is a very pretty and pleasing picture.

“You’re looking terrified. Stop being terrified. I’m here, and Oberyn is, and we’ll punch people in the face for you, won’t we?”

“Punching can be arranged, sweet one.” He can’t stop himself sliding his fingers through Willas’ curling hair, and over the top of his boy’s head the brother watches him, eyebrow raised. That look, and it is easily recognised, means that if Oberyn hurts Willas he will have Garlan Tyrell, Lieutenant and war hero, to deal with.

“Please don’t punch Olenna. She’d take you in a fight,” Willas huffs.

“I’ve got a very understanding Captain, who gets to order around attack helicopters. You forgot I get to play with attack helicopters.”

“Beric Dondarrion?” Oberyn has had him. Vast, and submissive, and almost frighteningly perverse.

“Good captain, even better bloke. You know him?”

“I count him as a friend.” If friend means an eleven hour sex marathon complete with acts so kinky that Oberyn still feels vaguely traumatised in a filthily glowing manner.

Garlan appraises him more as he releases Willas, and nods a little more firmly. “If Beric likes you, then you can’t be all that bad.”

“Beric is in lust with a Bolton, Lieutenant Tyrell. His taste is shocking.”

The double take from both brothers, hilarious, sets Oberyn laughing.

“He wants to shag Ramsay? I’m going to have to rip the piss out of him mercilessly from now on.” Garlan scruffs Willas’ hair, as if he is the older brother. Compared to this confident and easy presence, his Tyrell does seem rather young. Of course Willas ended up heavily coddled, protected, wrapped in cotton wool because of his delicate health, and therefore he never managed to reach the social curve of his peers. He is both naive and overly-mature, all in one, due to interacting with adults within his family exclusively until he hit eighteen and managed to escape to university. Ah, his grandmother adores him, but overprotects even at a distance.

They approach the vastness of Highgarden, and Oberyn tucks his hand into Willas’.

Willas takes it, shivering.

 

* * *

 

“Oh. My. God. Wil, he’s hot as fuck.”

Willas flinches, pressing slightly closer to Oberyn as if he’s a meat shield, and they are accosted by an undeniably gorgeous young man with curling hair and possibly the best set of cocksucking lips in Westeros. The man’s lust drips as Loras races towards them, kissing cheeks, all the time staring at Oberyn with come to bed eyes.

“You’ll have to be careful, or I’ll steal him and make him forget you, broski.”

Another of those tiny full-body flinches before Garlan goes to say something, scowling, but Oberyn steps in easily, silkily.

“Ah, I could not be stolen from my sweet boy. Siblings should never share everything, especially if something does not wish to be shared.”

He keeps Loras’ gaze as he kisses Willas’ hair, drags his hand from the small of that slender back to wrap, fully, possessively, about that narrow waist.

“He’s fun,” the youngest brother says, unrepentant. “Hot and fun. Old, but-”

“Anything over thirty is old to you,” Willas sighs. His cheek brushes Oberyn’s shoulder. “Is Margaery here?”

“She’s on her way. She’s so pregnant it’s hilarious. Olenna’s caught between hating that Bronn’s spawning, and ecstatic that she’s got another great grandchild in the oven. If my straight sibbies keep breeding, we’ll take over Westeros in marriages and relations.”

“How’s Renly?” To Oberyn’s sadistic pleasure the full-body flinch transfers from Willas to Loras.

“We’re on a break.”

“Tell him why, Loras,” Garlan prompted.

“It was only one kiss!”

“Loras Tyrell. Tart.”

“I was drunk!” he whines. “And he’s not bothered about me kissing other guys, just that he wasn’t there to watch, and I promised he could be, and-”

“Our brother,” Garlan adds, “is an insatiable man whore with a really understanding boyfriend.”

“He likes watching me kiss guys.” Tyrell sulks, which Oberyn has never truly dealt with, apparently involve pouting, and looking up from under long eyelashes, and blushing. Terribly calculated, and designed to make others coddle, but Garlan snorts through his nose and Willas merely sighs once more, rubs a hand across his eyes tiredly.

“Do you need to rest, sweet boy?”

“The journey,” he mumbles. “It was long. My knee hurts a little-”

Oberyn nuzzles that lovely hair, kisses Willas’ pale smooth forehead. Aches.

 

* * *

 

“I’m so sorry about Loras.” They are in a room decorated in golds and greens. Tasteful, like the rest of the vast castle, and situated understandably upon the ground floor. Books overflow a massive set of shelves; scientific tomes in High Valyrian, or Myrish, or even the strange swirling script of Yi-Ti. A lone stuffed rabbit, motheaten and well loved, nestles upon plump pillows that lay neat upon an impressively carved oak four poster bed.

Willas smiles, stressed, sits on the embroidered beauty of the counterpane, places his head in his hands.

“He stole my friends quite a lot. Well, what friends I had. He’s a force of nature.”

“Ah. That is why you flinched, yes?”

“I-I couldn’t bear thinking of him stealing you. He’s so handsome, and charismatic, and he’s apparently very good in bed.” Oberyn never hid his attraction to all sexes, all people. Willas accepted it easily because he is Willas; a sweet and lovely boy stuffed full of kindness. Oberyn never concealed such as he did not see anything to conceal. He is, as he is, and proud in his hedonism.

“He is not my type, Willas. He is far too flashy, too calculating. If you had me choose amongst you,” and they had met the lovely Margaery, with her pregnant belly and leather-clad husband as they made their way to Willas’ bedroom, “I would be most fascinated by Garlan.”

He refuses to say the name he wishes to, for that way damnation and pain lurks.

Something twists in Willas’ expression, and he gives another of those hopelessly tiny smiles.

“Garlan is a good person.”

“Almost as good as you,” he murmurs in the boy’s ear.

“I think I should nap now. You don’t have to stay. You can go and find Garlan if you want, and talk with him. I’m boring when I’m asleep. When I’m-” He stops, strips off the shirt Oberyn bought him, lays it carefully at the foot of the bed, and curls into a ball. Every part of his torso, soft and smooth, glimmers whiteness and freckles, a scattering of moles across his lower back, a suggestion of hair on his lean chest.

“I shall stay?”

“No, no. You go. I don’t want to keep you.”

It feels as if he’s being dismissed, and Oberyn, a tad bewildered, kisses Willas upon the forehead as he often does - even when he is not being a faux lover - and pads his way from the strangely cloying atmosphere that threatens to suffocate.

 

* * *

 

He finds Garlan marshalling the troops, directing staff to lay out tables and dinnerware in the vast ballroom.

“How is he? I’ve threatened Loras for him.” He smiles easily, grabs a heavy tray off a passing woman with a practiced strength that sets his arms flexing in the tightness of his t-shirt, accepts her thanks with a shrug, and places it himself.

A most capable man, Garlan Tyrell. Oberyn likes him very much, in a way that is not conducive to sleeping with him. The officer has a wife. Three children. He’s straight, and from the way the staff scurrying about look up to him with a fondness, a decent and well-loved member of his family and respected by his employees.

“Strange. Perhaps this is a little much for him. He suffers when he attends alone, but the pressure of bringing me may be weighing heavy.”

“You’re the first person he’s ever brought home. Not that he’s had a boyfriend before. Shit, I thought he wasn’t interested in anyone, and that’s fine. Just.” And there is a cadence there that is purely Willas, though the voice is lower and with a mixture of inflections picked up from being stationed across Westeros and Essos. “He’s bloody brilliant. He’s the best person I know, and alright, he’s my big brother, but he’s not like me. I’m tough. I take everything in my stride, and can stand up for myself. Wil’s never been like that. He’s far cleverer than me, and a lot more gentle. He feels everything, and that’s not good for someone like him. It gets under his skin, and he panics. He’s still taking his medication, isn’t he? Going to physical therapy?”

Oberyn nods.

“Good. He’s a prat sometimes and thinks he’s fine because he’s capable of dealing with strangers, comes off it, and then starts off with the anxiety again. It’s worse when he’s here, but he won’t listen to me when I tell him he doesn’t have to come and face his trigger point. Hells, I’m not here for most of the occasions, and Olenna bloody loves a party.”

“You all call her Olenna?”

“Can you imagine calling Olenna Tyrell, terrifying woman that she is, Granny?” He grins then, pure Willas, and Oberyn’s chest tightens. “She’s a martinet, and if she’d been a man she’d be Commander of the Queen’s Armies by now, and she interferes horribly with our lives, but she’s still our Nana. We love her, but she scares the shit out of us at the same time.”

Garlan straightens, cracks his spine. “Want a drink?”

* * *

 

“So. You and Willas huh?”

Oberyn has expected this, this conversation. They’re in the library, with an excellent bottle of whisky. Garlan Tyrell is the sort of man who it is most easy to talk with. He listens, and questions, and interjects, and makes others laugh. He talks brightly of his children, and he and Oberyn compare family portraits, and they tease each other lightly over how many daughters they have between them.

“You are obviously wishing to question me.” He sips, the burn of good alcohol slipping down his throat.

“He didn’t tell me that he had a boyfriend, to start with.” Garlan’s clever eyes meet Oberyn’s, so very like his sweet boy’s. “Then suddenly, when he has to go to a party and they’ve been trying to set him up with someone, he has one. Seems a tad suspicious, doesn’t it?”

“Perhaps.” It is for Willas to tell the family if he wishes it that this is purely to cease their nagging.

“Not my place to intrude though, but if you do hurt him I will punch your lights out. Even though I like you, and you’re obviously bloody good for him. You look good together.” Garlan chuckles. “Not like that, by the way. I’ve never had any crush on a bloke whatsoever, though sometimes I wonder if the Captain is as good in bed as they say-”

“Oh,” Oberyn says, his voice a low purr. “Oh, he so very much is.”

“That’s how you know him then?”

“He is a singular figure, Beric Dondarrion, and while I enjoyed our time, he is rather too complex in his needs than I can fulfil.”

“Pervert?”

Oberyn nods. “Not that I am one to speak, but he craves things that I-”

“No. Don’t. Seriously. I have to work with the bugger! Now I know he fancies bloody Ramsay Bolton, I’m wondering if I should put in for a transfer.”

Everyone knows of the Bolton boy, by reputation or actual experience. He is small, and vicious, and wears leather, and fills it admirably. Oberyn, who would make love to most, dislikes him and would not touch; there is a cold menace in those pale eyes, and an intelligence that lurks beneath his casual sadism like a shark amongst the darkest ocean waters. Beric, being Beric - and Beric is a good man, despite his foolishness with men, just as much a hero as his lieutenant and rather more physically damaged - gets drawn to darkness. He blames it cheerfully upon death, but sometimes, when Oberyn Skypes, he sees a desolation of nothing in the man’s amber-golden eyes.

Death makes a man wish to feel, apparently, and pain becomes more than the sum of its parts.

“He is most appreciative of your presence.”

Garlan smiles, almost bashful. “He’s the best officer I’ve worked with. I’ve told him they’re not splitting us up, because we’re so damned good together. When he’s the general of the Queen’s Forces, or whatever, I’ve made him promise to make me his underling. But that’s you avoiding talking about what you and Willas are up to, isn’t it?”

Another sip of his drink, before Oberyn drains the glass.

“Does he know that you like him?”

“We are lovers-”

“I know Willas. More than anyone, probably, apart from you. If you’re together, you can put a dress on me and call me Olenna. Looks natural though, from your end, but-”

He stands, smoothes his trousers, gives Garlan the full benefit of an arrogant Martell stare. “You know nothing.”

“Seven, you sound like one of my corporals. She’s made that her catchphrase.”

Placing the empty glass upon the table, Oberyn takes his leave.

 

* * *

 

“You must wake, sweet boy,” he murmurs.

Willas makes a tiny noise in his chest, buries his face into the pillow. “Five minutes more.”

“Olenna demands you.”

The half-erotic wriggling of pressing closer to the soft warm bedding stills, and an eye cracks open. Worry glazes, and Oberyn finds himself massaging bare flesh, from nape to the thankful tightness of Willas’ smartly cut trousers, over rigid shoulders and the loveliness of his spine. The boy must eat more, he decides. Too slender, too fragile. A lover could hurt one as delicate as Willas Tyrell, without meaning to.

“Can we stay here? Please? I can be ill?” Hopelessness is an appalling look upon that sweet featured face. Oberyn sighs and kisses a sleepy-soft cheek still rumpled by linen and tiredness.

“We shall get this over, and then retire as early as can be permitted.”

 

* * *

 

The evening to this point is better and worse than feared. When finding that Oberyn is obscenely rich and also powerful, and his brother retains the title of ‘prince,’ Olenna Tyrell gives him the sort of appraising stare that women who buy and sell horseflesh give to possible purchases.

“You’re too old for him,” she finally announces. “But you will do, I suppose.”

Gold, prestige, and royal blood, it seems, makes up for a lack of a womb and heirs to Highgarden. Garlan has enough children, and with Margaery’s little one on the way, Willas’ need to procreate is never a pressing matter.

Leonette is small, and dark, and dazzling. She fits against Garlan like a dream inside a mind, and they obviously are so deeply in love that even witnessing their holding of hands seems voyeuristic. She has her own career in HR, and, the Seven bless her and her husband, deflect the interest of Olenna from Willas and Oberyn towards the children and their hopes for a fourth.

Bronn? Oberyn knows Bronn well, for they have moved in similar circles. He is an insatiable man who prefers his lovers to be female but is never that picky when it comes to free drinks. Considering Willas told him years ago that Margaery is also devious, it seems fitting that they are together. They spark, and spit, and laugh, and Bronn’s flattish common accent hammers into the poshness of the Tyrell pronunciation. He basks in his working class roots. He delights in tormenting Olenna by broadcasting shamelessly what he is, and who he is.

Loras merely sulks, attempts to lay a drunken hand upon Oberyn’s thigh, and is rebuffed with an arched eyebrow and a kiss to Willas’ long fingers.

He seems to be finally - finally - unwinding when Olenna takes her leave and goes to circulate amongst the thronging guests. Sweet smiles, and Garlan and Leonette tease lovingly, and Margaery wraps her arm about Willas and makes him giggle.

They are joined by friends also, and, finally, to Oberyn’s dark relief, Renly Baratheon wanders in, pushes Loras against the wall, and devours his mouth.

“So, you finally got dragged to Highgarden then?” Tyrion looks up, smirks. “How the hells have you managed to remain unsullied by the whole Tyrellian empire, I’ve no idea.” He is small, yet his personality makes him tall and fascinating, despite his face, his scars, his strange and fascinating eyes.

“Willas,” and Oberyn drops his voice, settles upon the velvet sofa next to the man, “claimed I am his lover, so as to stop his family thrusting unsuitable people at him.”

“Well, aren’t you? Gods, we thought you’d been at it for fucking ages.” Jaime leans over the back, steals his brother’s drink for a long swig. “What have you been doing if you’ve not been shagging then?”

“Friends.”

“Not like you, Oby, to lose your legendary touch.”

“Not like you,” he mimics back, “to lose your legendary wench.”

Jaime turns red, and flat-mouthed, and his green eyes tighten. “Uncalled for, Martell.”

“I advised you to chase her, and yet you prevaricated.”

“At least Tormund didn’t get her.” Brienne, marvellous woman, has returned to Tarth to run the family business, leaving beautiful Jaime quite bereft of her company. Lannister loves the tall blonde, even if they are somewhat disparate; the age difference yawns, the difference in beauty - though Brienne is one of the most striking figures any of them know - the horrors of Jaime’s pained and troubled past. Once he thought himself too good for a ‘ugly wench’ from Tarth. Now he seems convinced that he will never be good enough.

Lilac assaults his senses, pale fingers glittering with gems massage his shoulders. Varys never lurks far from the Lannister boys on such occasions, and they appreciate his attention. Where Varys is, Olenna never steps. Even in her own citadel, everyone knows that Varys will, forever and always, be the alpha bitch. Soft lips find Oberyn’s cheeks, greeting in the way of the Dornish, the Myrish, and the purple clad man insinuates his bulk onto the settee between him and Tyrion. The gemmy fingers find Tyrion’s thigh, pat lightly, retreat.

“Dearheart. You look delicious as always. How droll to find you here finally, even if you’ve made the entire Tyrell family think you’re buggering the heir.”

Of course Varys knows. Varys knows everything. He is that sort of person, being the power behind Daenerys’ throne. Oberyn loathes, and adores, at the same time.

“Garlan knows.”

“Of course he does. Gorgeous Garlan the Gallant. Shame he’s so hideously straight, isn’t it?” Purple eyes, so very like Dany’s own, glitter. “Gods, I adore soldiers. All that muscle. All that stamina. Jaime keeps introducing me to all his yummy boy friends, and what is a girl to do?”

Tyrion kicks him on the knee, snorts. Their relationship is such that no one quite knows if they are merely great friends, or very much in some sort of life partnership that only a gay man and a straight man can cultivate. Rumours abound that Daenerys is Tyrion’s, and Tyrion belongs to her and to Varys, and Varys? Well, he is owned by nothing but the Seven Kingdoms herself, therefore serving a higher mistress.

“Said Tyrell at three o’clock,” Jaime mutters sulkily, lounging on the arm of the settee. Tyrion rests back against his brother, pulls a hip flask from his pocket, passes it around. Given the small man’s love of the finest alcohol he can get his mouth on, even the pleasures of the Reach are lacking. It is shared between the four of them, Oberyn never bothering to wipe the lip of the pewter.

Fingers, trembling very slightly, touch Oberyn’s hair and he stills, the flask still to his mouth, as they card lightly through the dark and silver strands.

“Sweet one.”

“May I join you?” Polite as always, even in his own home, that one day Willas will haunt like some beautiful wraith.

Oberyn pats his thigh invitingly.

“How the hells did Mace breed any of you lot?” Tyrion asks conversationally. “If Bronn hadn’t got to your sister first, I’d have dived in head first. Those tit-”

“Wine of Gods and Tits, yeah yeah.” Jaime steals the flask, takes a long swallow, holds it out towards Willas who carefully takes it. He hovers, unsure, before taking a careful sip and slowly, nervously, folding himself into Oberyn’s waiting arms. There’s hardly any weight to him, like a bird, and the boy tucks his endless legs under himself, side-on to Oberyn’s chest, forehead against temple.

“...what is that stuff,” he finally manages, but he takes another taste. “I’ve never had anything like this before.”

He did not wipe Jaime’s spittle from the rim. Heat drips into Oberyn’s throat, down his gullet, bitter and boiling in his belly.

“It’s made from anise.” Tyrion steals the vessel back, chugs the rest with a smugness that is pure him, tucks it away. “Lethal if drunk in vast quantities, I can tell you that. I had a hangover for a week. Not as rough as Braavosi rum though.”

Wrapping an arm about Willas is easily done. He shifts a little with the contact, tense for a moment, before Oberyn turns his head and kisses him lightly at the very corner of his mouth. An attentive, loving boyfriend, attentively loving his boy, after all.

How well his Tyrell acts; how he plays his part as he snuggles closer, hand light upon the back of Oberyn’s neck, the other splayed lightly where silk opens across tanned flesh. Willas’ breath, warm and aniseed and grape-sweet with the glasses he has imbibed before - courage inhabits wine - caresses and teases, tempts and taunts. One kiss, he supposes, as they play their roles, will not cause harm. It will still be easy to walk away from this once the pretense ends, once Willas does not have to deal with his family. It will not hurt, he tells himself. It almost seems a truth.

“I shall kiss you now,” he murmurs in the boy’s ear.

“Yes. Okay. Please.” That look returns, the one indecipherable and almost lost.

Slowly their mouths meet. At first the chasteness seems over-sweet, overdone, but he realises with another of those twists in his gut that Willas screams inexperience. He kisses as himself, as divine and lovely as some innocent creature, and that cannot do here. They cannot be seen to be so careful, so unaware, as if this is their first time. Oberyn takes control as he cradles the man’s skull; he nudges lightly, nuzzles, allows his tongue to caress the wine-tasting lips, and they part, dreamily, and a tongue finds his own.

In seconds he is hard just from a kiss, and Willas’ hands in his hair, and the tiny whimper of something that reverberates between them. Unsure as he is, his Tyrell tries so very beautifully. He chases Oberyn’s tongue playfully with his own, presses so close that nothing can possibly slip between their bodies, whines softly as he is plundered.

Of course it is over in seconds, where Oberyn would prefer to make love with his lips and tongue, but as they break, panting, Willas dips in, cheeks aflame and eyes like stars, brushing his mouth along saliva glistening skin.

Varys arches his eyebrow.

Tyrion just grins.

 

* * *

 

They remain longer than planned, the kiss or the booze drugging Willas into a brilliantly acted softly smiling stupor. He drifts about the room, hand in Oberyn’s, charming and sweet and introducing the entirety of the party. When relaxed, he is a diplomatic wonder; others respond to his warmth and kindness, rising above their own personalities. Yes, Willas panics, and worries, and exhausts himself, but when he forgets his family for a moment or two, his natural abilities shine and shimmer like the desert sands under the Dornish sun.

“This is Oberyn,” he says to one of Mace’s old rugby friends; the tall well-build man has fish tattoos splashing up his forearms, and rebelliously wears jeans. “He’s my boyfriend.”

When Willas ends up dragged off somewhere by Margaery, who needs help with cake or some such, the tattooed man pads over like some grizzled and battered black bear, slings a solid arm around Oberyn, examines him with a cynical blue gaze.

“Hurt him, and I’ll destroy you,” he says. “Nothing personal. Then Jonny’ll get you back up and we’ll destroy you again. Right?” Common vowels fight with the flat aristocratic Midlander accent, and he wears a signet ring upon which a black enamelled fish swims.

“Jonny?”

The man with the black fish nods towards an equally solid redheaded man, rather more well dressed than slightly scruffy black jeans.

“That is Jon Connington.” One of the famed Westerosi Barbarian rugby players along with Arthur Dayne and Robert Baratheon in his day.

“Aye. Hurt Willas and you get Jonny and me to tag team you and not in a fucking nice way, yeah?”

Connington. Oberyn works backwards, thinks, scrabbles at ill-remembered rugby lore, and clicks. “The Blackfish, I presume?”

“Shovel talking him, Bryn?” The redhead puts a bottle of beer into the Blackfish’s free hand; the other, still wound tight about Oberyn’s shoulders, feels akin to steel and leather.

“See,” Brynden Tully continues, and he is the foremost rugby coach in Westeros, and therefore it is no wonder that Mace Tyrell is great friends with him, “I’m the nice one. It’s Jonny you got to look out for. He got sent off five times in a season when he was twenty one, and he’s got worse since then. I’d just smash your face in. Jonny’d sell your organs on the black market and keep you awake and aware as he cuts ‘em out of your body. With a spoon.”

Jon Connington smiles faintly, takes a swig of his pint. Under his fitted shirt muscle ripples along his back.

“So, you hurt our lad, and we’ll be down on you like a brace of really fucking pissed off fairy godparents, alright?”

 

* * *

 

Without Willas at his elbow, escaping into the coolness of a Highgarden evening seems to be the most sensible option. Oberyn takes his glass of unfortunate Arbor Gold - wine does not need to be so sickeningly sweet, but he drinks it for Willas adores the taste and it sends the man wonderfully giddy - and settles upon a great stone bench. Away from the blazing lights of the mansion the sky arcs, stars sparkle scattered the ever changing velvet of the sky. A most beautiful situation, despite the tinny distant music clamoring.

Willas’ lips upon his own. Shyness melting to something that Oberyn almost thinks, wildly and faintly drunken, could truly be a desire for more.

“Lovely night, isn’t it?” Varys settles next to him, hands him a goblet of thick red wine. “Look what Auntie V found in the back of the drinks cupboard, dearest. Swapsies?”

Dornish grape fills his palate, and Varys, opportunist, steals the half-drunk Arbor Gold and downs it in one.

“You drink like Tyrion.”

The roundish face, carefully powdered, registers an amusement.

“So, Oberyn. Sweetheart. Why aren’t you fucking that gorgeous boy?”

Of anyone it would be Varys who approaches him, who looks into his eyes and understands what goes through a man’s mind. He is half-spy, half-politician, all the power behind the throne of the Seven Kingdoms, and utterly, shamelessly, amused by the lives of the playthings that are other people. He simpers obsequiously, flutters lashless lids, oozes danger, wields knowledge as a weapon with which to defend the country, the Queen.

Given his current lofty heights, Varys is nothing but a Myrish ex-whore with a mind so brilliant that he terrifies even the most talented of people. He may wear the suits, and have the ear of Daenerys Targaryen, but he remains a man of the people, of the nation, of the greater good. Others in his position would become ensconced in the hierarchy. Varys goes amongst the poor, the suffering, and utilises his knowing to strengthen the power of his mistress.

He? Is a most terrifying individual, yet Oberyn respects his methods. It takes a bastard to know a bastard, does it not?

“The gorgeous boy is most unfuckable,” he replies, after a mouthful of pleasingly rich wine. The warmth of alcohol trails across his flesh, hypersensitive.

“Darling, I thought you were a clever one. You’re an idiot, and I’m disappointed.”

Oberyn merely fixes him with a stare. In return he is patted, rather patronisingly, upon the hand.

“Sweetling, no one is that good at acting, are they? Especially terrified Tyrell men without an ounce of deceit in their bodies? Loras I could see being thoroughly fine with playing a role, and Margie, gorgeous girl she is. Willas is far too Garlan, far too Mace. If he were acting, darling,” and Varys leans in, all gleaming gaze and carefully painted lips, “he’d be abysmal. Unlike you, who could act it perfectly, if you so wished, but you’re not, are you? How very obvious you are, Oberyn. As if you don’t want to drag pretty Willas into his bedroom and show him, in excruciating detail, that you haven’t been acting whatsoever. Hmm?”

“If he is not acting,” Oberyn counters, a cold burn settling in his belly, at the corners of his mouth, “then why has he not shown me he wants me?”

A chuckle, utterly condescending. “Perhaps if you’d have said his name when you professed to wanting to shag a Tyrell, rather than gorgeous Garlan’s, he’d have not turned so upset with you?”

“You heard-?”

“A little bird told me.”

Seven. Of course. How lovely Willas curled in toward himself; rejection would burn so terribly when the object of his quiet affection professed a taste for handsome Garlan. He told Oberyn to talk with his brother, almost begged him to leave him-.

“I understand, of course. The boy radiates virgin, and you very much don’t, do you? Imagine being in love with someone like you, from that pretty pretty boy’s view? You’re innocent, and sweet, and an absolute darling, and you’re thoroughly overwhelmed by a gorgeous sexy Dornishman who exudes all this macho sexuality, who sleeps openly with everyone, who could fuck anyone he so wants. How can you even live up to any sort of expectation? Gods,” and his voice slips into the Willas cadence, horrifying/fascinating, “Oberyn. I just. How could I ever? I’m just. You know. Sex is such a big thing, and I’ve never done it, and I’d be such a let down, I’d disappoint, and he’s is so wonderful-”

“Stop that.” Varys. Sadist.

“He’s adored you since before Ellaria, darling.”

“And you know how, my friend?”

“Because I have eyes. And means. And contacts.”

Oberyn drains the rest of the glass, has the vessel plucked from his fingers.

“Why do you do this?”

The other smiles, and as usual with those who are not Tyrion or Daenerys, the expression never warms Varys’ purple eyes. “You have no idea how much I loathe Olenna Tyrell, do you? Awful woman. She never quite forgave me for being foreign and queer and frightfully common, and so very non-U in society, that she made the tiny mistake of trying to bring me down. Unfortunately for dear Olenna, I have friends in extraordinary high places. Never go against a Myrish whore when power is on the line, darling. We fight to win.”

Varys kisses his cheek, lingering. “Also, I actually like you. You’re one of the only people in this whole realm who’s worth giving a damn about, you are an excellent ally - imagining you as an enemy gives me heartburn - plus you’re very visually appealing. I do like that in a man, dearest. You and I are rather similar in certain ways. Others are so afraid of being themselves, aren’t they?”

“Are you and Tyrion-?” Wanting to know.

“That’s for us to know, sweetling.” A wink, a tightly amused smirk. “Go and rescue your boy and bloody well have noisy sex outside Olenna’s bedroom or something. You should be happy, after all. Otherwise you turn awfully Red Viper and I worry for certain individuals; your ruthlessness is sexy and terrifying after all, and hugely destructive. Oh, read that as Lannisters by the way. Please do destroy Tywin though, and Cersei, though I’m sure Tyrion will want to be there for the ‘shits and giggles.’”

 

* * *

 

 

He finds Willas propped against the wall, glass in hand, with one of the gay godfathers at his side. They’re talking softly, Jon Connington’s hand light upon that beautifully dressed shoulder, an intensity in the older man’s expression and a vague sort of lostness turning Willas’ pretty hazel eyes from their usual brightness into something wan and tired.

“I just. I don’t know. I just don’t know, Uncle Jon.”

“Give me a nod, and I’ll break him.”

“But he doesn’t know! Oh Gods. He doesn’t know, and. I shouldn’t be here. Of course it hurts. I lied, and this is my doom, isn’t it? To be taunted with him being him but me being forever alone, while he doesn’t even notice. You can’t punch someone for not noticing. It’s unfair. I know you’re biased, but please? I’ll be fine. Perfectly fine. I’ll be fi-”

Ah. Willas told Connington and the Blackfish it seems, or the men, who love their godson so very much, could see the truth.

“Wil. Always so fucking selfless. Get angry. Slap him across his gorgeous face.”

“But it isn’t his fault-”

“Bollocks,” Connington interrupts. “Fucking bollocks, love. You’ve got to be a complete arse not to see that you’re in love with him. Some sort of self-absorbed arse who’s been running around nailing everything that moves when he could bloody well have you, baby boy.”

“I’m thirty two. Not a baby anymore.”

“Always will be to me and Bryn.” A big calloused hand ruffles Willas’ silken curls. “You’re our favourite. He doesn’t deserve you.”

“I,” and his sweet boy wraps his arms about himself. “I’m not naturally. Y’know. With people. That I like. I mean, I’ve not liked many people, because of him, and it’s been years and years, and I’m such an idiot! And I do understand, because of Ellaria, and how awful her passing was, and maybe liking someone terrifies him? But I’m not his type. He goes for people who do sex, who’re sexy, and attractive, and that can do-”

That is enough.

Oberyn insinuates himself forward, eyes blazing, placing himself at the side of Willas who stares, all rabbit in headlights, then looks frantically at Jon Connington who shifts his weight protectively.

“I must talk with you.”

“Oberyn-”

“Alone.”

The tall redhead watches them for a moment, before nodding slightly. “If you need me, love, I’ll be with Bryn, just over there.” Ten feet away the Blackfish contemplates a vol-au-vent with a curled lip and an expression of thunderous distaste, and grabs another bottle of Guinness from a rather cowed-seeming waiter.

Connington departs. Silence falls, as cloying and heated as a blanket at the height of summer.

“I must apologise,” he finally says.

“Oh? No. There really isn’t anything to apologise for! I mean, it’s fine. Everything is fine.”

“You say such things before you begin to panic.”

“I’m not panicking,” panics Willas, looking everywhere but directly at Oberyn. His cheeks flush red, ears burning, fingers twitching lightly.

“You love me.” There must be no couching of the truth. Not now. Not when Willas loves him.

“You’re my best friend,” he tries, sweet man that he is, desperate to save face in fear and misunderstanding that Oberyn does not return such feeling.

“You love me,” he murmurs, tongue dry with the words, reaching out. His hands find lean muscle and slender hips, tighten as Willas winds himself up to flee, trapping him gently between Oberyn and the wall and a hideous vase cast in some inferior bronze to their right.

“I’m sorry. I tried not to, but. But how could anyone not love you?” Speech rushes, Willas gasps helplessly and looks everywhere but at Oberyn. “You’re wonderful. You are! Everything I wish I could be. Brave, and handsome, and so giving, and just incredible. You’re so nice to me, even when I’m just such an idiot, because I am, if I wasn’t I’d be able to be all cool and fine, but I am, and I’m not, and I’m so sorry.”

“If you apologise once more, I shall be most cross.”

Willas loves him.

Such words should be picked out in stars upon the velvet night sky, with the laughing moon smiling upon them both.

“I’m sor-”

A tiny oof slips from between the pretty man’s lips as Oberyn presses closer. Hip to hip, thigh to thigh, breast to breast now, and he trails his fingers upward, over flank and ribs and flatness to lightly caress Willas’ truly spectacular cheekbones. He stares, all kitten-eyed and nervous, shivering under the gentle touch before, with a tiny sob, Willas presses his cheek into the palm of Oberyn’s hand.

“Hush.”

“I am though. Awfully. To wreck our friendship by being an absolute idiot.”

“No. It is I who is the idiot,” he whispers, fevered. Each tiny movement sets his flesh aflame. “For not seeing, for not understanding.”

“I understand if you want to not see me for a bit.”

“And why would I not wish to see you, Willas? For I would not inflict that upon my heart, or your tender soul.”

“Because you,” Willas swallows, shadows threatening. “You don’t love me.”

“Says who?” His mouth finds pale skin, light upon Willas’ forehead, the tip of his nose, the smoothness of his jaw prickled light with stubble, then resting upon a temple under which a pulse hammers, gallops, rears. “I did not say I do not love you, and you do not know my mind, sweet one. Perhaps I love you, and have loved you, even before Ellaria left? Perhaps I have loved you for so long that it seems as natural as smiling, or breathing? Perhaps I saw innocence and did not wish to despoil you even if I do love you, yes?”

Willas watches him, taut as wire.

“You are a good man. Beautiful, and sensitive. Clever. Kind. Warm of heart and gentle of soul. What could one such as you want with one such as I?”

“But you’re you!”

“And you are you,” he announces most significantly. “If you can think of me in such terms, then surely I can return them also, and just as strong? I loved my Ellaria, and so similar we were together. And yet? I wanted you also. I want you. I held myself back when I thought you did not want a lover. Every touch burned. Every kiss branded. Every smile carved upon my heart. And now I hear your words, and your fervour, and the passion in your eyes shines, and I will not let you go. How could I when I have been your lover in name? When you presented me to your family, and I did not pretend. How could I pretend, Willas? When I have loved you so long, so greatly, that-”

“I think you should kiss me now.”

Willas’ expression twitches between hollow-eyed shock and a glimmering dampness of something more complex. He is never so beautiful as when he smiles properly, with teeth and dimples flashing, stress melting from his face. He seems as he does in photographs a decade old, as if tiredness and anxiety and hard work haven’t worked at the very edges of him.

He must smile more often, like this, as he wraps his arms too tightly about Oberyn’s neck and clings like a lean yet surprisingly strong monkey.

“I will not kiss you now.” Oberyn interrupts the flashing change of mood, from sunny to worry, with a caress that trickles along Willas’ back and tucks, easily and as if it should always have been there, into the snugness of the back pocket of those rather well-cut trousers. “I do not wish an audience for our first true kiss.”

The Fairy Godfathers and Garlan Tyrell chat pointedly in their general vicinity, stealing glances.

“I love you.” A shiver erupts along his sweet boy’s torso. “There. I’ve said it. Properly. Oh Gods. And you love me? That’s absolutely ridiculous.”

“What is even more ridiculous,” punctuating with a light cupping of a frankly spectacular buttock, “is that we are here, when we could not be.”

Willas sighs into the side of Oberyn’s neck, tucking close. They fit together as he and Ellaria once did. As if it was truly meant to be.

“Shall we go to my room?”

Such an innocent voice murmuring such promise.

“You are sure?”

“Because it’s you, and I love you. Only for you, Oberyn.”

 

* * *

 

“I demand a report, Lieutenant Tyrell. Darling, do remind me why we’ve not promoted you? I demand you be our poster boy.” Varys swoops, kisses Garlan on the cheek, hands him a bottle of beer. Unlike other Tyrells, the soldier prefers his drinks made with hops rather than grapes.

“That’d mean promoting Beric, and he-”

“Wants to shag a Bolton. Hideous idea, of course, but part of me is utterly desperate for that just to see the look on Roosey’s face. Did you know his adorable plump wife calls him Roosey? Obviously that means every official email I send is now addressed to Roosey B because how could I not?”

Garlan grins. He gets on with everyone, Varys included, because that is just his nature.

“You’re far more divine looking than Beric, even if you lack his height. He has thighs that could happily crush a man, but you’re not a scarred redhead with a fire fetish, are you? Far more sanitary. Also, you haven’t slept with half of the armed forces of Westeros, which is a bonus and a terribly sad thing all rolled into one. However, if you would like to bugger your way to the top, I’m more than willing to sacrifice myself to your career.” A wink. Sometimes Garlan wonders if underneath the constant flirtation and slightly pervy charm Varys does want to proposition him, but since he’s got to be shagging Tyrion, who is a great bloke though could be slightly scary from crotch height when riled, he takes it in the joking spirit it’s probably given in.

“You’re far too pretty for me, ser.” Leonette scrubs up beautifully, but she’s also tired, and careworn, and bearing c-section scars on her once flat stomach, and is the most wonderful, perfect, incredible woman in his entire world. She spends most of her days covered in baby sick and various food items, in leggings, her dark curly hair a rat’s nest, and he still thinks she looks just amazing. He can’t help it. Leonette embodies mother goddess.

“Flatterer.” Purple eyes sparkle. “I told Oberyn by the way. I think the fact Willas didn’t fall on his knees and beg to suck him off confused the poor man into thinking that your delicious brother wasn’t in love with him. Innocence confuses Oberyn. It’s one thing he’s always found fascinating but terrifying. Now, did my oh so needed intervention work?”

“They’ve gone towards Willas’ bedroom.”

“As has your dear grandmother. I wonder who could have tipped her off that Willas might sneak off in the throes of passion? Olenna might be impressed with the money and the old family name, but she's a hideous hypocrite who prefers her grandsons not to sexually excite the guests.” Those purple eyes twinkle and Garlan looks towards the fairly sturdy wall separating them from the hall leading towards his brother’s childhood suite. Beside him, radiating an air of smugness, Varys counts down silently on his fingers. He gets to four before a piercing scream rents the air and Olenna comes stalking through the ornate double doors, nostrils flaring like a racehorse and apoplectic with something, and grabs an entire bottle of gin from a bemused young waitress.

“Oh dear,” Varys murmurs, far too amused with himself. “They didn’t even make it to the bedroom. Well done Oberyn.”

Someone wraps an arm about his waist, and when he grins down at his wife, she’s pissing herself laughing at Nana’s meltdown. While having Olenna as a grandmother is somewhat intimidating, having her as a grandmother in law is far far worse. Leonette is strong; she deals with everything while he’s off in Essos, and does far better than he could ever imagine.

She’s strong, and brilliant, and Garlan loves the very bones of her.

He’s just glad that Willas has finally found someone worthy of him, too.

 

* * *

 


End file.
